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Celeritas' Birthday Bash 2011  by Celeritas

The Khazâd were truly a marvel.  Stone and metal did not sing to them, the way that it did to the Eldar.  They felt it, in their very bones, and delved from there.  There was no need for long hours of study of structure, or of waking them with song and then—patiently—listening back.  What had taken Finrod so much of his life to learn, ever Khuzd was born knowing.  They were indeed the children of Aulë.

Fortunately, they were as willing to trade—in knowledge as much as in goods—as he.  The Sindar were skilled craftsmen, true, but they had not had the same resources as the Noldor, and what he had been happily taught, many of them had learned on their own.  It was this sort of exchange that made him heady, and to now be partnered with another race entirely, to delve into the bones of the earth together…

Practicalities came first, though.  Nargothrond was to be a fortress as well as a home, and the question he had was one that only one born of earth could answer.  “How, Námin,” he said, “if you do not mind my asking, do your kind eat when you live underground for so long?”  Menegroth took tithes, but he had not Melian’s glamours for his protection.  There would have to be other ways.

“Our longfathers hunted,” said the Khuzd, “and dried the meats, and ate them.  Now, we trade.”

“And if you could not venture forth to hunt?”

“There are bats,” said Námin, “and other creatures that dwell near the surface.  They will do when all else fails.”

Finrod frowned.  “Do you think there would be a way to re-create the sun underground?”

“I am not a gem-crofter, Felagund,” said Námin.  “But sun alone will not suffice.  You will need all the things that make soil, rock, and water, and dead things.”

Finrod clapped his hands.  “The sanitation, of course!”  Námin would think him a madman for asking this, if not turn his back on him for asking such personal questions, but—“Námin, how do you dispose of—”

This was why he had left Valinor for Middle-earth.

It was also, in all likelihood, why Amarië had not come with him.





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